For the purposes of the following discussions, "negative energy" refers to the animating force of the undead and "positive energy" refers to the animating force of the living. As far as I know Eclipse d20 is the only supplement that has bothered to define positive and negative energy, associating the former with vitality, raw energy and the upper planes and the latter with darkness, destruction and the lower planes.
In the Aihrde (or Erde) campaign setting by Troll Lord Games, there are three planes for negative, positive and neutral energy. These are renamed to the more poetic Abnegation, Apodiction and Achromatic planes. I like these names better, so I will be using them below.
A number of first and third party supplements introduce undead who are not inherently evil. For example: ghosts and revenants in the Monster Manual, and "good" liches (including archlich and baelnorn) in Monsters of Faerun. They are heavily affected by which moral option is used.
Other supplements introduce special snowflake undead animated by positive energy (which is assumed to be inherently good or something). For example: deathless in Book of Exalted Deeds and Eberron Campaign Setting, and prana ghosts in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Occult Bestiary. These "posi-dead" are generally unaffected by which moral option is used.
Moral Options
The fan-made netbook Tome of Necromancy explored two options for the morality of positive and negative energy, but their absence in 5e means that these explanations need tweaking. Other authors devised additional options, which I am including here.- The Crawling Darkness: negative energy is inherently evil.
- Playing with Fire: negative energy is dangerous, but not inherently evil.
- The Pitiable Hunger: negative energy is hungry, but not inherently evil.
- Disturbing the Natural Order: negative energy does not exist; necromancy diverts life force.
- The Slumbering Horror: the plane of Abnegation is sentient and evil, and the undead are its unwitting puppets.
I have adjusted these moral options from their original proposals. Among other things, the original proposals were intended for 3e not 5e and thus rely on outdated assumptions, and none of these proposals took into account the variety of undead creatures nor the existence of the posi-dead. Indeed, most of these options break down the moment posi-dead are included since the entire reason posi-dead were invented was to have undead that were not inherently evil. Furthermore, posi-dead may not exist as of 5e or were rolled into non-evil undead.
The Crawling Darkness
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| Energy planes circa 5e |
Under this option, the undead are inherently evil. As shown by the cosmological diagram in the 5e DMG, the plane of Abnegation is inexorably linked to the lower planes (more on that below). Therefore, the undead are animated by fiends. When a necromancer creates undead, he is summoning demons to inhabit the corpses or shape the ectoplasm; there is no such thing as a "white" necromancer (unless they employ posi-dead). This option fits neatly with Orcus being the Demon Prince of the Undead and their supposed creator.
This is actually stated in the AD&D monster entry for demons and devils. More specifically, chaotic evil undead are animated by manes from the Abyss, lawful evil undead are animated by lemures from the Nine Hells, and (presumably, since the materials do not explain it) neutral evil undead are animated by larvae from Hades.
A new avenue opened by this option is that an undead creature may retain its original soul (and thus alignment) and fight with the fiend possessing it for control of its actions as a tortured antihero. Ghosts and revenants may struggle with an inner "shadow" a la Wraith: The Oblivion, while vampires and ghouls may struggle with an inner "beast" a la Warhammer Fantasy.
The corollary of this option is that positive energy is inherently good, or at least tied to the upper planes. That is, positive and negative energy are the opposing energy of good and evil, respectively. By this logic all non-evil (or at least not tortured) undead must be posi-dead. This logic introduces additional problems because the RAW does not consistently follow said logic. Among other things, fiends are healed by cure spells but undead are not, yet both are harmed by holy water.
The downside of this option is that it typically forbids any undead who are not evil (or not tortured) unless they are posi-dead. (Although, of the undead in the game's history, that only includes ghosts and revenants and good liches.) After accounting for the posi-dead, this moral option appears to be the closest to the implicit setting described by the standard D&D rules (including the morally ambiguous Eberron).
Playing with Fire
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| Inner Planes circa 2e |
Under this option, the undead are no more evil than elementals are. They are essentially death elementals or animated by death elementals. The undead will pursue whatever motivates them, but are not predisposed toward good or evil. Posi-dead are the logical opposite of undead, being or animated by life elementals, and in the same way are equally likely to be good or evil. Positive and negative energy are merely opposite poles of a battery or magnet, or the amoral energy of life and death (or fiery yang and cold yin, in Taoist thought), respectively. These forces attract and complement rather than oppose one another.
There is no implication that undead need to feed, either (this is covered by The Pitiable Hunger, below). Since undead lack any behavior bias, then there are no morally ambiguous undead or tortured antiheroes under this option. (The Tome of Necromancy claims that ghouls and shadows are still always evil under this option, but right before it states that vampires only feed if they are jerks.)
The downside of this option is that 99% of undead were intended to be evil and this option does not really explain why that is. Only ghosts, revenants, energy elementals and white necromancers really fit this option, and then only because it explains their existence (as opposed to being posi-dead). Even after accounting for the posi-dead, this option makes less sense than The Crawling Darkness except for settings where the designers intended for non-evil uses of undead (such as the non-evil necromancers of Hollowfaust in Scarred Lands).
The Pitiable Hunger
Under this option, the undead are driven by a craving or passion for the life they have lost. While they are not evil per se, they cannot survive without satisfying their craving or passion. The most common craving is for the life force of the living. Indeed, in lean times they may even cannibalize other undead! Here it makes the most sense to treat negative energy as the absence of positive energy, or as a parasite which consumes positive energy and metabolizes it into more negative energy (a la Black Moon-Ka in Multisim's Nephilim), as them being equal and opposing forces creates logical contradictions under this option.
The posi-dead are the exact opposite: they are fountains of life force, more alive than the living, and have no need for any sustenance whatsoever. They are still driven by a passion to enjoy the post-life they have been gifted (explaining why they do not sit around doing nothing), but they are not tortured by their own existence.
This option explains almost all the undead in the MM without the logical contradictions seen in the previous two options. It is similar to the tortured antihero avenue mentioned under The Crawling Darkness, but by contrast the hunger is not a fiend and lacks a mind of its own. Typically, anyway.
One downside of this option is that it forces all undead to require some form of sustenance or strong desire to keep them going, so necromancers will have to actively maintain their servants. Another downside of this option is that white necromancers will be morally ambiguous at the best of times, since all undead suffer this crippling hunger and thus creating them is an exercise in cruelty (unless posi-dead are used instead).
This option does not explain any published setting I am aware of, though it does explain what few non-evil undead exist (i.e. ghosts and revenants) and it does explain the optional undead hunger rules presented in sources like Libris Mortis and Blood of the Night. What is really weird is that those hunger rules assume undead are still evil as a rule, which I think is redundant and unfair.
One downside of this option is that it forces all undead to require some form of sustenance or strong desire to keep them going, so necromancers will have to actively maintain their servants. Another downside of this option is that white necromancers will be morally ambiguous at the best of times, since all undead suffer this crippling hunger and thus creating them is an exercise in cruelty (unless posi-dead are used instead).
This option does not explain any published setting I am aware of, though it does explain what few non-evil undead exist (i.e. ghosts and revenants) and it does explain the optional undead hunger rules presented in sources like Libris Mortis and Blood of the Night. What is really weird is that those hunger rules assume undead are still evil as a rule, which I think is redundant and unfair.
Disturbing the Natural Order
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| Afterlife circa Pathfinder |
Under this option, the undead are not evil per se but every one of them contains a tiny portal to the plane of Abnegation that drains the life force from the world around them. The plane of Apodiction provides light and energy for life, while the plane of Abnegation is a cosmic vacuum cleaner that ensures that life and death cycles in a perpetual circular balance (the "circle of life"). By analogy, think of the life force of the world as a river, flowing from Apodiction to Abnegation: the undead are dams or siphons in that river that impound the water in reservoirs or divert the water from its natural course, thus preventing it from nourishing downstream flora and fauna. As the number of undead increases, the world around them will sicken and die as the flow of life force is dammed. (Compare the decline of Nosgoth in Soul Reaver, at least according to the Elder God.)
Here negative energy is explicitly the absence of positive energy rather than an equal and opposing force, a literal negative amount of energy. (For the purposes of argument we will ignore the possibility that undead may become alive again by increasing their energy to a positive amount, since that defies all the assumptions of the game.)
An opposing variation on this concept is that every use of necromancy brings a bit of negative energy (aka necrotic energy, dark energy, destrudo, Black Moon-Ka, etc) into the world. This negative energy is associated with darkness, shadow, necromancy, corruption, curses, negative emotions, destruction, disintegration, causing wounds, harming, negating, dispelling, the lower planes, toxins, infections, etc. Its presence corrupts the world around it, because it consumes positive energy and metabolizes it into more negative energy, and causes things like mutation in living things or spontaneous animation of the dead. (Compare the blight spread by undead in Warcraft 3.)
The upside of this option is that it neatly explains how obedient undead and hungry undead may coexist. The obedient undead (e.g. skeletons, zombies) are reservoirs created by necromancers. The vampire siphons life force directly from others, while the ghoul consumes carrion that would otherwise fertilize plants.
The upside of this option is that it neatly explains how obedient undead and hungry undead may coexist. The obedient undead (e.g. skeletons, zombies) are reservoirs created by necromancers. The vampire siphons life force directly from others, while the ghoul consumes carrion that would otherwise fertilize plants.
The downside of this option is that it only really exists to explain why the undead are universally reviled and make "white" necromancers evil in the long term (unless they employ posi-dead, who would fertilize the land), but is otherwise just a more extreme version of The Pitiable Hunger (undead even behave the same way!). This option does not explain any published campaign setting I am aware of, but it does explain those rare situations in which the presence of undead or negative energy has an effect similar to the unholy application of the hallow spell (which are so rare I am only aware of the undead uprising in Pathfinder).
The Slumbering Horror
Under this option, the undead are not evil per se but they are all connected to the plane of Abnegation. This plane is sentient and, like The Crawling Darkness option, inexorably linked with the lower planes. Most of the time, however, the plane is asleep. Yet it is capable of dreaming, and the undead may act out its dreams (such as the dancing skeletons of old cartoons). During its brief periods of lucidity, it acts as a hive mind for obedient undead or whispers suggestions to intelligent undead. At the extreme end, the plane of Abnegation may mastermind undead invasions or rule as god of a necropolis.
A variation on this is to replace the plane of Abnegation with some other powerful entity, such as Orcus the Demon Prince of the Undead, the god of death/undeath (compare Death in JourneyQuest). Said entity may or may not be strictly evil itself, depending on the DM's proclivities. For example, the "horror" (and thus undead in general) may be an immune response to souls not cycling as they should, in an inversion of how undead are treated as perversions in typical campaign settings (compare the Null in Shadowbane: Thrown of Oblivion).
The downside of this option is that, like Disturbing the Natural Order, it only really exists to forbid white necromancers by rendering the undead unreliable to use (even by evil necromancers!). (Although the posi-dead are still a huge loophole here.) Absent the control of the "horror," the undead would presumably act like they do under Playing with Fire (which, as said above, has its own problems), except when the "horror" takes over and they act as they do under The Crawling Darkness. This option is only really useful if the GM intends for the "horror" itself to be the main antagonist (or patron in the case of evil campaigns).
Implications
Every option has very different implications for the behavior of the undead. No one option is able to approximate their stated behavior in the MM, as every undead creature seemingly follows a different option. Several options render major swathes of the undead in the MM unusable, but I have tried my best to make every grouping of undead compelling under all options.
These groupings taken from my last post on classifying the undead.
These groupings taken from my last post on classifying the undead.
The Spectral Dead
This category includes allips, banshees, ghosts, shadows, specters, and wraiths. The posi-dead counterpart is the prana ghost.
Under The Crawling Darkness option, the spectral dead are fiends animating shells of ectoplasm. They may be created from evil souls on the material plane or summoned from the lower planes. Whenever they create spawn, they are actually using the life force of their victims to summon fiends. Ghosts are tortured by their inner fiend if they are not evil. The prana ghosts are always good and find living forever to be awesome (the few evil prana ghosts are tormented by an inner celestial).
Under Playing with Fire option, all spectral dead are driven by unfinished business in the same way as ghosts. They may be good, neutral or evil as determined by the nature of their unfinished business. There is no functional difference between spectral dead and prana ghosts in regards to alignment bias.
Under The Pitiable Hunger option, the spectral dead are driven by a craving for the life they have lost and thus lash out at the living or haunt places familiar to them in life. Those who do not have strong unfinished business to anchor them to the material plane must consume life force to avoid fading away, and will even cannibalize one another in the absence of living prey. The prana ghosts are founts of life force that bring joy and light wherever they go.
Under Disturbing the Natural Order option, the spectral dead behave much like they do under The Pitiable Hunger option. The difference is that their presence blights the land around them as their numbers increase since they siphon or corrupt it. The presence of prana ghosts causes deserts to turn into forests and so forth.
Under The Slumbering Horror option, the spectral dead behave much as they do under the Playing with Fire option unless commanded by the plane of Abnegation, in which case they act like they do under The Crawling Darkness option. Prana ghosts may pursue their own goals, but may sometimes be recruited to serve the forces of good by the plane of Apodiction.
The Consummate Undead
This category includes death knights, liches, and mummies. The good counterpart is the good lich (including the archlich and baelnorn). The posi-dead counterpart is the deathless.
Under The Crawling Darkness option, these undead used dark magic (or made pacts with the lower planes) to achieve a twisted form of immortality. The good liches must be posi-dead; they arose through light magic (or a pact with the upper planes). The deathless, who arose through sheer will or desire, are always good.
Under Playing with Fire option, these undead used magic or made pacts to achieve immortality but otherwise do not have an alignment bias. Deathless may be good or evil (as in the case of 2e mummies, who were evil posi-dead).
Under The Pitiable Hunger option, these undead sustain themselves on raw magic (making antimagic deadly to them) or must consume the souls of the living. Deathless have no need for sustenance. (A variation of this option is used by Dweomercraft: Lich.)
Under Disturbing the Natural Order option, these undead blight the land around them (and may need to consume souls on top of that). By contrast, deathless fertilize the land around them.
Under The Slumbering Horror option, these undead harnessed the power of or made a mutual pact with the lower plane of Abnegation or upper plane of Apodiction (as appropriate) and may be persuaded or called to serve their patron at any time. (A variation of this option is used by Lords of the Night: Liches.)
Under The Pitiable Hunger option, these undead sustain themselves on raw magic (making antimagic deadly to them) or must consume the souls of the living. Deathless have no need for sustenance. (A variation of this option is used by Dweomercraft: Lich.)
Under Disturbing the Natural Order option, these undead blight the land around them (and may need to consume souls on top of that). By contrast, deathless fertilize the land around them.
Under The Slumbering Horror option, these undead harnessed the power of or made a mutual pact with the lower plane of Abnegation or upper plane of Apodiction (as appropriate) and may be persuaded or called to serve their patron at any time. (A variation of this option is used by Lords of the Night: Liches.)
Vampires
Vampires may include variants such as nosferatu, jiangshi and penanggalan. They lack posi-dead counterparts. Curiously, in older editions vampires were animated by both positive and negative energy; indeed, the same entry said this was true of all undead (but this was otherwise ignored).
Under The Crawling Darkness option, vampires are possessed and animated by a fiend (or even made a pact with the lower planes!). Most are soulless and evil (similar to Buffy the Vampire Slayer). The few good vampires must constantly fight the urges and whispers of their inner fiend (similar to the Sonja Blue novels), and generally become tortured antiheroes or are driven insane. Particularly sadistic GM's (such as Level9Drow, who suggested this) may specify that vampires must feed on innocent blood to maintain their sanity, meaning that good vampires who feed on animals or criminals eventually become deranged monsters at the control of their inner beast.
Under Playing with Fire option, vampires are rockstars of the undead and only feed on people if they are evil. (This is similar to the portrayal of vampires in fiction like The Vampire in My Bathtub.) Some GM's may decide to complicate this by having vampires only gain their traditional powers and/or weakness if they feed, adding an element of moral ambiguity.
Under The Pitiable Hunger option, vampires are driven by a hunger for the blood of the living in much the same way as The Crawling Darkness option. Unlike that option, this hunger does not have a true mind of its own. If they do not feed, they will deteriorate mentally and/or physically. (In Warhammer Fantasy, vampires who do not feed enough will mutate into mindless bat-like monsters long before they starve.)
Under Disturbing the Natural Order option, vampires behave the same way they do under The Pitiable Hunger option. The difference is that they slowly blight the land around them, draining its life force on top of their hunger for blood. (This what happens to Nosgoth in Soul Reaver, according to the Elder God.)
Under The Slumbering Horror option, vampires behave much as they do under the Playing with Fire option, but non-evil vampires live in constant fear that the plane of Abnegation will whisper suggestions to make them do evil things.
The Walking Dead, The Obedient Dead
This category includes skeletons and zombies. They lack posi-dead counterparts.
Under The Crawling Darkness option, the obedient dead are animated by fiends and will generally attempt to find and kill living things when they are not being commanded. (Van Richten's Guide to the Walking Dead goes into detail on how to make them inherently evil without being pointlessly destructive like this.) So-called "zombie apocalypses" may be caused by curses that reanimated corpses in the vicinity or magical plagues spread by the attacks of the walking dead.
Under Playing with Fire option, the obedient dead are little different from using other constructs. Actually, they are morally superior since they do not require enslaving elementals against their will like golems do (unless necromancers are enslaving positive and negative energy elementals to do it, which may very well be the case).
Under The Pitiable Hunger option, the presence of hunger does not imply the ability to feed that hunger. If an undead creature does not have a craving or passion of its own, then it will steadily deteriorate unless maintained by its master. Hence, it is common for obedient undead created by necromancers to lack awareness of or the capacity to feed their hunger (this is the whole reason why they are called obedient).
Under Playing with Fire option, the obedient dead are little different from using other constructs. Actually, they are morally superior since they do not require enslaving elementals against their will like golems do (unless necromancers are enslaving positive and negative energy elementals to do it, which may very well be the case).
Under The Pitiable Hunger option, the presence of hunger does not imply the ability to feed that hunger. If an undead creature does not have a craving or passion of its own, then it will steadily deteriorate unless maintained by its master. Hence, it is common for obedient undead created by necromancers to lack awareness of or the capacity to feed their hunger (this is the whole reason why they are called obedient).
Under Disturbing the Natural Order option, the creation of obedient dead ties up fixed portions of life force that would otherwise go to the land around them in accordance with how many exist. A few zombies make no difference, but armies of skeletons will reduce thriving forests to deserts.
Under The Slumbering Horror option, the obedient dead are unreliable and dangerous to use, since the plane of Abnegation make take control of them at anytime. Even undead masters are not immune to this, as the plane of Abnegation's dreams may cause the obedient dead to behave in other ways contrary to their master's will.
The Walking Dead, The Hungry Dead
This category includes ghasts and ghouls. They lack posi-dead counterparts. They are affected very similarly to vampires by the moral options, but lack the same charisma. (Warhammer Fantasy depicts the ghoul courts as suffering a mass hallucination where they perceive themselves as normal people in order to distinguish them from vampires.)
Under The Crawling Darkness option, the hungry dead are animated and possessed by fiends of gluttony. They eat corpses to desecrate the sanctity of the dead and attack the living for the sheer pleasure. What few non-evil examples exist (none to my knowledge) will be tormented by the urging of their inner fiend.
Under Playing with Fire option, the hungry dead do not need to feed at all. If they do, they are already evil. Again, their existence is pretty pointless under this option.
Under The Pitiable Hunger option, the hungry dead are driven by their hunger. Non-evil hungry dead live wretched existences where they must rob graves and avoid the living. If they do not feed, they will deteriorate mentally and/or physically. (This option is used by The Everlasting: Book of the Unliving for its ghouls.)
Under Disturbing the Natural Order option, the hungry dead not only behave as they do under The Pitiable Hunger option, but their presence blights the land around them. Indeed, they might be able to consume anything remotely organic to highlight this.
Under The Slumbering Horror option, the hungry dead behave much as they do under the Playing with Fire option, except for when the plane of Abnegation calls and they act as they do under The Crawling Darkness option. Non-evil hungry dead live in constant fear of this.
Under The Crawling Darkness option, the hungry dead are animated and possessed by fiends of gluttony. They eat corpses to desecrate the sanctity of the dead and attack the living for the sheer pleasure. What few non-evil examples exist (none to my knowledge) will be tormented by the urging of their inner fiend.
Under Playing with Fire option, the hungry dead do not need to feed at all. If they do, they are already evil. Again, their existence is pretty pointless under this option.
Under The Pitiable Hunger option, the hungry dead are driven by their hunger. Non-evil hungry dead live wretched existences where they must rob graves and avoid the living. If they do not feed, they will deteriorate mentally and/or physically. (This option is used by The Everlasting: Book of the Unliving for its ghouls.)
Under Disturbing the Natural Order option, the hungry dead not only behave as they do under The Pitiable Hunger option, but their presence blights the land around them. Indeed, they might be able to consume anything remotely organic to highlight this.
Under The Slumbering Horror option, the hungry dead behave much as they do under the Playing with Fire option, except for when the plane of Abnegation calls and they act as they do under The Crawling Darkness option. Non-evil hungry dead live in constant fear of this.
The Walking Dead, The Restless Dead
This category includes revenants and wights. The posi-dead counterpart is the deathless.
Under The Crawling Darkness option, the restless dead are animated by fiends. Like the obedient dead, they will attempt to kill all living things they can find. Revenants are driven by extreme desires that lead them to do many evil things, and even non-evil revenants are still tormented by their inner fiend and must constantly resist its attempts to pervert their unfinished business. The deathless are not tormented at all, and are free to be goody two-shoes.
Under Playing with Fire option, the restless dead are all essentially driven by personal passions like the revenant. This may be for good or ill, but there is no bias. Deathless are identical to other restless dead except for being posi-dead.
Under The Pitiable Hunger option, the restless dead must pursue their passions or they will physically deteriorate. The deathless do not share this drawback, being posi-dead.
Under Disturbing the Natural Order option, the restless dead behave as they do under The Pitiable Hunter option except that they also blight the land around them as their numbers increase, twisting it to reflect their passions. By contrast, the deathless will cause lifeless deserts to grow into verdant forests.
Under The Slumbering Horror option, the restless dead behave much as they do under the Playing with Fire option except for when they are manipulated by the plane of Abnegation, in which case they behave as they do under The Crawling Darkness option.
Under The Crawling Darkness option, the negative and positive elementals have evil and good alignments respectively. Indeed, the GM may decide to retype them as fiends (or undead) and celestials, respectively. Whenever they come into contact, they mutually annihilate one another due to the opposition of good and evil. Positive elementals may fall to become negative elementals a la celestials falling to become fiends, and negative elementals may rise to become positive energy elementals a la fiends rising to become celestials.
Under Playing with Fire option, the energy elementals are unchanged. Whenever they come into contact, they complement one another in a way that appears to outside observers as mutual annihilation. Unlike other elementals, positive and negative elementals may be inverted to become the other (similar to the taijitu of Taoist thought).
Under The Pitiable Hunger option, the negative energy elementals are curious and tragic beings who admire and love but do not understand true life and harm it by their very existence. The positive energy elementals, by contrast, are so alive that they may harm mortal life (by causing radiant damage) or bring inanimate matter to life (a la the ravid). Unlike other elementals, it is possible for positive energy elementals to become negative energy elementals by being infected with the pitiable hunger.
Under Disturbing the Natural Order option, negative and positive energy elementals are two sides of the same coin. Positive energy elementals are living portals to the plane of Apodiction that bring light and life (and radiation burns). Negative energy elementals are living portals to the plane of Abnegation that drain the life from everything around them (causing rapid necrosis). When they meet, the net energy sum becomes zero and the two elementals cease to exist. As living portals in the life stream itself, the energy elementals may become their opposite by simply inverting the direction of flow.
Under The Slumbering Horror option, the energy elementals behave as they do under the Playing with Fire option, except when they are drafted by their home plane in which case they behave as they do under The Crawling Darkness option.
Under The Crawling Darkness option, the restless dead are animated by fiends. Like the obedient dead, they will attempt to kill all living things they can find. Revenants are driven by extreme desires that lead them to do many evil things, and even non-evil revenants are still tormented by their inner fiend and must constantly resist its attempts to pervert their unfinished business. The deathless are not tormented at all, and are free to be goody two-shoes.
Under Playing with Fire option, the restless dead are all essentially driven by personal passions like the revenant. This may be for good or ill, but there is no bias. Deathless are identical to other restless dead except for being posi-dead.
Under The Pitiable Hunger option, the restless dead must pursue their passions or they will physically deteriorate. The deathless do not share this drawback, being posi-dead.
Under Disturbing the Natural Order option, the restless dead behave as they do under The Pitiable Hunter option except that they also blight the land around them as their numbers increase, twisting it to reflect their passions. By contrast, the deathless will cause lifeless deserts to grow into verdant forests.
Under The Slumbering Horror option, the restless dead behave much as they do under the Playing with Fire option except for when they are manipulated by the plane of Abnegation, in which case they behave as they do under The Crawling Darkness option.
Energy Elementals
This category includes negative energy elementals and positive energy elementals (named energons in Wizards' supplements), as well as related creatures like ravids, nexids, yan-qi, yin-qi, etc.
Under The Crawling Darkness option, the negative and positive elementals have evil and good alignments respectively. Indeed, the GM may decide to retype them as fiends (or undead) and celestials, respectively. Whenever they come into contact, they mutually annihilate one another due to the opposition of good and evil. Positive elementals may fall to become negative elementals a la celestials falling to become fiends, and negative elementals may rise to become positive energy elementals a la fiends rising to become celestials.
Under Playing with Fire option, the energy elementals are unchanged. Whenever they come into contact, they complement one another in a way that appears to outside observers as mutual annihilation. Unlike other elementals, positive and negative elementals may be inverted to become the other (similar to the taijitu of Taoist thought).
Under The Pitiable Hunger option, the negative energy elementals are curious and tragic beings who admire and love but do not understand true life and harm it by their very existence. The positive energy elementals, by contrast, are so alive that they may harm mortal life (by causing radiant damage) or bring inanimate matter to life (a la the ravid). Unlike other elementals, it is possible for positive energy elementals to become negative energy elementals by being infected with the pitiable hunger.
Under Disturbing the Natural Order option, negative and positive energy elementals are two sides of the same coin. Positive energy elementals are living portals to the plane of Apodiction that bring light and life (and radiation burns). Negative energy elementals are living portals to the plane of Abnegation that drain the life from everything around them (causing rapid necrosis). When they meet, the net energy sum becomes zero and the two elementals cease to exist. As living portals in the life stream itself, the energy elementals may become their opposite by simply inverting the direction of flow.
Under The Slumbering Horror option, the energy elementals behave as they do under the Playing with Fire option, except when they are drafted by their home plane in which case they behave as they do under The Crawling Darkness option.
Posi-dead
This category includes ancient dead (older edition mummies), deathless, and prana ghosts.Under The Crawling Darkness option, posi-dead are good equivalents of undead tied to positive energy and the upper planes. This is how deathless and prana ghosts are typically assumed to work.
Under Playing with Fire option, posi-dead are just the logical opposite of undead, similar to the opposition between water and fire elementals or earth and air elementals. This is how ancient dead (evil posi-dead) are typically assumed to work.
Under The Pitiable Hunger option, posi-dead are founts of life force that find living forever to be totally awesome.
Under Disturbing the Natural Order option, posi-dead are founts of life force that cause flowers to spring up in their wake. This makes them obvious allies for druids and other nature lovers.
Under The Slumbering Horror option, posi-dead are connected to the plane of Apodiction or upper planes and may be occasionally recruited to serve the forces of goodness, light and everything nice.
White Necromancers
This category includes evil black necromancers, good white necromancers, and neutral grey necromancers.
Under Playing with Fire option, necromancers of any color may employ positive or negative energy. Color is only determined by the necromancer's own alignment.
Under The Pitiable Hunger option, white necromancers only ever employ posi-dead and attempt to save undead from their hunger. Grey necromancers employ undead, but before animation they will ask permission using speak with dead if the corpse was not evil in life.
Under Disturbing the Natural Order option, white necromancers are essentially druids who commune with the life stream and employ posi-dead to stop the blight spread by the undead.
Under The Slumbering Horror option, necromancers who do not have the support of the planes of Apodiction or Abnegative are at a huge disadvantage since employing undead or posi-dead is so unreliable. Grey necromancers are unheard of.
Using multiple options together
These options may be used together as distinct animating forces to explain why undead may behave however the GM desires for particular situations. Multiple explanations for the undead also helps to resolve contradictions that are not resolved by a single option, since none of the options explains all the inconsistencies in the RAW. The RAW only makes sense if each of the seemingly contradictory situations follows a different moral option. Even my interpretations above give far more leeway than the original authors did.This is especially a problem in 5e, as the mechanics of positive and negative energy have been discarded and these were key to the distinction between undead and deathless in 3e (deathless have yet to appear in 5e). The energy types now only appear in the fluff and without consistency. Indeed, one published adventure depicted greater restoration (a spell using "positive energy") cast on an ailing undead to restore it. Positive energy is not detrimental to undead, though cure spells have no effect. Negative energy is detrimental to everyone, as an inflict spell may injure the living, constructs and undead alike. Although this pattern is broken by the spell negative energy flood, which injures everyone (including constructs) except undead and heals undead targets.
Each of these spells follows a different logic, almost none of which are consistent with the moral options without really creative reinterpretation. Since there is no consistent logic to any of them, it is best to just discard the concept of positive and negative energy altogether. Just treat healing, harming, life, undeath, etc as completely separate concepts with no correlation. Thus, the concept of posi-dead is seemingly superfluous for the most part.
There have been arguments that creating undead are wrong because they trap the soul, but whether this is true or not is never clear and depends entirely on GM fiat. As of 5e the resurrection spell states it cannot be cast on an undead creature, but it is unclear if this means that undead trap the soul or have a "mirror image of that soul" which prevents resurrection or whether just the body part touched must not be undead; the true resurrection spell has no such restriction.
I heard second or third hand that in one official D&D novel (I could not find the source) a character was killed and animated as an undead creature and then one of her severed body parts subject to a resurrection spell somewhere else, which resurrected the living character while leaving the undead counterpart unaffected. This suggests that undead creatures generally lack the soul of the original and lack a mirror soul which would interfere with resurrection... at least by that particular author's logic. In the end, it depends on GM fiat.
Another curious detail is that the same corpse may be animated as a zombie or animated object depending entirely on what spell was cast: constructs may be created from anything, but undead are generally created from something once alive (or parts thereof, like the shadow).
For example, the non-traditional undead or spiritualist necromancers explored by the Terminally Incoherent blog are only feasible under the Playing with Fire option. Those necromancers in particular have the fascinating lore of binding animal spirits into corpses rather than the generic evil spirits typical of D&D lore.
If one wants to account for all possibilities, it makes sense to treat all the moral options as different power sources or patrons (similar to warlock patrons?) which coexist in the same setting. For example, the crawling darkness, playing with fire and pitiable hunger options may easily be turned into three types of animating spirits to fit different users.
Of course, it is best to work out the metaphysics beforehand. In my own setting I use variations of all these: if souls are not able to cycle properly, then they become stuck in the world and may create undead. The lack of souls feeding the plane of Abnegation causes it to get upset and start forcing its way into the world and controlling the undead. A side effect of this is that negative energy starts infecting and mutating the landscape. The nature of their animating spirit affects how the undead behave: fiends are evil, animal spirits are dumb, human souls have unfinished business, etc.
This post has already gone on way too long. Signing off...
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